Nunavut man facing retrial on murder charges to appear in court

A Cambridge Bay man scheduled to be retried on three charges of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder will make a surprise appearance in an Iqaluit courtroom this week.

Chris Bishop, now 28, is expected to appear in the Nunavut Court of Justice on the morning of Jan. 14.

A 12-member jury found Chris Bishop guilty on all five counts during a high-profile 2010 trial in Iqaluit.

The charges stemmed from a 2007 incident that left three people dead and two injured with bullet wounds.

But the Nunavut Court of Appeal overturned the verdict in a decision in January 2013, finding that the presiding judge, Justice John Vertes, made errors in fact and in law.

The court docket issued by the Nunavut Court of Justice for Jan. 14 states that Bishop will appear for a sentencing hearing but John Solski, duty counsel at the office of the Nunavut Crown, said Jan. 12, “there will be a new development.”

Solski added that Crown lawyer Paul Culver has already arrived in Iqaluit ahead of Wednesday’s court appearance, but was unavailable for comment.

During Bishop’s first trial, the jury heard that five people invaded Bishop’s home carrying weapons, smashing his door down, with the apparent intent of assaulting him.

But Bishop, armed with a semi-automatic assault rifle carrying an illegal 30-shot clip, shot and killed three of them.

One of the men killed, according to a witness at the trial, was crawling away through a puddle of his own blood when Bishop took careful aim and shot him in the back.

Bishop’s murder charges relate to the deaths of Kevin Komaksiut, 21, Keith Atatahak, 28 — both of Cambridge Bay — and Dean Costa, 29. Logan Pigalak and Antoinette Bernhardt were also shot during the incident, leading to Bishop’s two attempted murder charges.

The jury at Bishop’s first trial had to navigate the complex legal differences between murder, manslaughter and attempted murder to arrive at their verdict.

Second-degree murder, under the Criminal Code of Canada, is committed when a person means to cause injuries that he or she knows is likely to cause death but, unlike first-degree murder, the killing is not planned in advance.

Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a person without the intent to kill, while attempted murder is a failed attempt to kill another human.

Attempted murder requires the Crown to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an accused had the specific intent to kill another person.

Convictions of second-degree murder carry an automatic sentence of life imprisonment, while manslaughter with a firearm carries a minimum sentence of four years and a maximum of life imprisonment.

Attempted murder with a firearm carries a minimum sentence of four years imprisonment and a maximum of life imprisonment.